Stats Guru Edoardo Molinari Could Be European Ryder Cup Team’s Secret Weapon
Edoardo Molinari’s claims to fame on the golf course started with his U.S. Amateur victory in 2005 at Merion Golf Club, then progressed to his ’10 Ryder Cup appearance with his brother, Francesco, and three DP World Tour victories.
But what could make him the toast of European professional golf is his data analytics process, and his ability to communicate the importance of stats to players. In the case of this week's Ryder Cup, that meant deep dives into the numbers before advising European captain Luke Donald on his six captain's picks. After the picks, Molinari conducted more pairings analysis for the different sessions.
Donald inherited Molinari, the 42-year-old Turin, Italy, native, as part of the short-lived Henrik Stenson captaincy. Stenson joined LIV and opened the position for Donald.
If Molinari wasn’t already a vice captain for Stenson’s squad, he would have likely been one of Donald’s sidekicks, as the Englishman knew of the burgeoning analytics business that Molinari had developed on the DP World Tour.
Edoardo Molinari is crunching numbers behind the scenes for the European team.
Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
“Of all the vice captains I’m probably talking to him the most in the last few weeks just because I think having an idea of how their plan comparable to others, and who matches up with whom,” Donald said after his picks were made. “Who looks better in foursomes, who looks better in four-balls, which players suit the odd [number holes], which player suits the evens. There’s so many little things that go into it. It’s trying to make sure I have a reasonably clear head.”
Molinari clearly never intended to go down the analytics path and even chuckles when first referencing his services as a business, but it is becoming not only a business, but also a successful and necessary profession on the tours where large amounts of money are won or lost over one or two shots.
“I think it's good that people start to see this as a business as a good sign,” Molinari said at the Scottish Open.
Always interested in numbers, Molinari graduated from the Polytechnic University of Turin with a degree in engineering and then immediately turned professional in 2006.
And while he has some claims to fame on the golf course, when he started to work with Matt Fitzpatrick in June 2020 he became a known entity.
Fitz’s eventual rise, including a U.S. Open victory in 2022, made Molinari a sought-after commodity. While word of mouth expanded his business in the early years, after that U.S. Open, Molinari has had to expand his operations with additional personnel to help serve his growing client base of approximately 30 players across the DP World Tour, PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions.
“I'm still involved with the discussion and conversation with the players,” Molinari said. “And obviously, it could get a bit out of hand, but I'm very well organized. And at the moment, we just cut it. So basically, we don't get a new player unless someone leaves.”
It was two years before the U.S. Amateur win that Molinari started recording all his shots and, over time, what were just simple recordings were incorporated with layers and layers of analysis.
In 2011, when strokes-gained putting debuted, Molinari contacted the stat's architect, Mark Broadie. They first met in Orlando to share ideas and continue sharing ideas today, with Broadie contributing from the stats angle and Molinari from the golf angle.
All of Molinari’s early analysis was focused on his own game, and his reports were in Italian, so when he was approached by Frenchman Alexander Levy, a fellow DP World Tour player, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, he told the Frenchman he would work with him but needed time to convert his system to include more players in other languages.
During the pandemic Molinari had time on his hands, and he used six months away from golf to develop his new business.
“I just started thinking, rebuilding the platform from scratch from a blank piece of paper. Blank Excel was in the beginning,” Molinari said. "And being able to send more reports, give more and more information to different players and being able to digest all the data we get from ShotLink.”
In the same period, Molinari approached putting guru Phil Kenyon to see whether his newly developed system could help any of his players, which eventually got Fitzpatrick in front of Molinari, in a relationship that continues to this day.
“I think Edoardo brings a unique perspective really, because not only does he have a thorough understanding of the stats, but he brings the perspective of a player and the true understanding of the game,” Kenyon said. “The consequences insights and interpretation of the stats are unique. The feedback and information that the players can glean from it, I think, is brilliant.”
When Fitzpatrick approached Molinari, he was not only interested in analytical analysis but also wanted to know whether Molinari would take him on as an investor.
At the time Molinari was uninterested in a partner but eager for a new client.
“I think he was quite happy to keep it to himself because I just felt like it was such a great product,” Fitzpatrick said. “I know all the stuff that he’s doing right now … and it’s gonna be very impressive. And yeah, I would have loved to invest in the business with him, but I understand that he wants to keep it to himself, because it’s all his hard work.”
Ultimately Molinari is looking to monetize his business and has started down that path by creating a company earlier this year.
Everything Molinari has done for his analytics business is owned by him, including the code used for the analysis, but because he is still playing and more players are seeking his services, Molinari has hired developers to build on his ideas. He's financing his current growth with his own money and the money he receives.
“I think next year we’re going to have a brand-new platform,” Molinari said. “Which will be more helpful for professionals, but also with the idea in the long term to open it up to college teams and national teams alike, elite amateurs, and then you never know—down the line in a few years, it might be available to any player that wants to get better.”
Here is an example that was part of his report to his players in the Scottish Open in July at the Renaissance Club.
In his analysis, Molinari determined that bunker play was not very important and even though it’s a links-style course, there was basically zero correlation between greenside bunker play and scoring.
Molinari was helping his players practice and prepare more efficiently, eliminating the need for practicing bunker shots that won’t ultimately matter in their score.
“The reason is, there’s no correlation on scoring, it just depends on the lie, you get a good lie, anyone can get it up and down,” Molinari said. “If you get a bad lie, if you’re Gary Player or Ernie Els at his best, they won’t get it up and down.”
Instead, Molinari focused his players on shots from 150 to 200 yards, with 6-, 7- and 8-irons, because his analysis suggested that should be the focus that week.
“Simple things like knowing the break of the putt and how much it’s breaking and just little things like that to dispersion to target, so, again, you get more specific into your practice and how you can get better,” Fitzpatrick said. “Little notes like that go a long way.”
What Molinari has provided to the European Ryder Cup team and Donald is top secret, but success for Europe this week will only bolster Molinari’s status as a stats guru and likely accelerate the timetable to raise money for future development.